All's Fair in Cards and War
by laeclark7
Summary: Until my muse starts cooperating, this is just a fun little post-Eclipse one-shot. It has the potential to go from scattered thoughts to a full-fledged plot line. Bare with me. Comments are always much loved.


_Disclaimer... I do not own. I just borrow them to make you laugh. SM owns all._

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Chapter One- Underneath It All…

**APOV**

While enjoying the warm breeze blowing in through the windows, I couldn't help but chuckle to myself. _You certainly are one clever little minx, Alice._

It had not taken much to convince the boys to start up a game of rugby in the backyard, given the streak of nice weather Forks was suddenly experiencing. After a week and a half of nothing but sun, cabin fever had taken its toll.

Bella had been spending much of that time at our house, and I had kept her cooped up with me to take care of the _minute_ details of the wedding planning. Whenever I sensed that she was on the verge of burning my wedding binder, (which was becoming more and more frequent, as of late,) I sent her off to spend some alone time with Edward.

After I had a quick vision of the events unfolding downstairs, however, I quickly told Bella that she should join the others outside for a bit.

"I really don't think you'll want to miss this game…" I smirked knowingly at her. She stared confusedly at me for a few seconds, but then practically sprinted down the stairs after I had given her the escape route.

_If she only knew… _I chuckled to myself, again. An old vision flashed before my eyes of the horrified expression on her face once she finally put the pieces together, and it only made me laugh that much harder.

The past four hours we had spent looking through hundreds of swatches for 'napkins and tablecloths' had actually had nothing to do with the wedding, but everything to do with the honeymoon. I managed to get Bella to pick out twenty different fabrics that she really liked before I had sent her out for the afternoon.

I always saved the real planning for when I knew that Bella was in need of a mental break, and so I giggled once more as I pulled up the website that I had been hiding from her, and began clicking through the new _Aubade_ line.

_Edward will never know what hit him…_

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**EPOV**

_*CRASH*_

A large cloud of dust surrounded us as Emmett tackled me into, yet another, large boulder in the backyard.

He donned a wide grin as he put out his hand to help me back up.

"Are you alright, Bro? Gosh, I'm so sorry. I thought you would have moved out of the way. You ARE the fastest member of the family, after all."

While his words seemed innocent enough, his mind had gone in another direction.

_A little distracted, are we? _He mentally taunted me. _You're makin' this waaaay too easy, for me, Bro. But hey, if you wanna look bad in front of Bella, I'll totally keep handing your ass to yah, no problem. _His smile grew perceptibly wider.

The closer we got to the wedding date, the more Emmett tried to embarrass me in front of Bella. If I was being honest with myself, I knew that he was just bored and looking for something to keep himself entertained. I knew that being stuck in the vicinity of the house had gotten to all of us a bit, but he was definitely taking it overboard.

I grabbed the hand he had offered me and pulled hard, sending him flying over my shoulder into what had been left of the boulder, stirring up another large cloud of dust.

I heard a shrill whistle blow and glanced up to see my love giving me a stern look, "Unsportsmanlike conduct, Edward. Esme, will you draw a card?"

"Of course, Bella," Esme said, as she reached into the baseball hat. This was probably not going to end well.

As with most of the sports we played, we had our own set of rules for rugby. Before the start of each game, each of the players wrote out 5 different penalty cards to be placed in a hat. Emmett was already playing with just his left hand, Jasper was only permitted to bunny hop for a solid 45 minutes of play, and Rosalie had to roll in the mud every time she was passed the ball. I was pretty sure that was part of the reason Emmett was going after me, as well. After all, I had written that card with Rose in mind, and kept passing her the ball... even though she wasn't on my team. Yeah, that might've been raising some suspicions.

Emse began to read the card that she had just drawn, "Okay, Edward. According to the card, you have to…" My mother trailed off mid-sentence and began to laugh quietly, piquing my curiosity.

"What, Esme? Edward has to what?" Rose asked eagerly.

"He… He has to… I'm sorry, Bella, could you please read it?"

Bella took the card back from Esme, read it over quickly, and began laughing hysterically.

"Alright, let's get it over with. What do I have to do?" I asked, becoming increasingly nervous after Bella's peculiar response.

"Well, Edward," Bella began, trying spit it out between gasps of breath. "It seems… It seems as though you will be feeling just a tiny bit _freer_ for the remainder of the game." Without having even revealed anything, she already had tears streaming down her face.

"_Freer_? Would you care to explain that one, Love?"

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry." Bella began again, after catching her breath, "Edward, you'll be playing the rest of this game in just your underwear, apparently."

As I looked at her in disbelief, I could see a twinkle in her eye that accompanied her Cheshire cat grin.

"Seriously?" Jasper guffawed, "That's awesome, kudos to whoever wrote that one."

I ran over to check the card to make sure that Bella wasn't just trying to mess around with me. Sure enough, in Emmett's chicken scratch, the card read, '_Player must play the remainder of the game in nothing but his/her underwear.'_

_I glared at Emmett, only to hear him say, "Hey, dude, I intended that card for Rose, but I guess it's only fair, since you got her with the mud card, and all…"_

_Rosalie looked at me with a smug expression on her face, and walked over to kiss my conniving excuse of a brother._

_As I began stripping down to my boxers, several things happened at once. Almost immediately, I heard an audible gasp come from Bella; as her heart started to pound at an accelerated rate, I could smell the flush of blood rushing to her cheeks. Some small corner of my mind was pleased with the reaction she had to seeing me like this, and I almost considered the embarrassment worth it. At the same time, however, I heard cries of laughter as I saw the same image flash very clearly in the minds of every vampire in the vicinity… And I knew instantly that I would never be able to live this moment down. The Snoopy boxers, that I had so unfortunately decided to wear that morning, were forever imprinted in the minds of my entire family. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I began to plot my revenge against Emmett._


End file.
